June's Island Batik Ambassador challenge is to create for a cause. We are each tasked with making a twin-bed sized quilt for Quilts Across America, an initiative within Sleep in Heavenly Peace. Sleep in Heavenly Peace believes a bed is a basic need for all children and works to make sure that no kid sleeps on the floor in our town. Quilts Across American aims to provide a quilt with each bed that is delivered.
Each of us was sent a tool from Deb Tucker's Studio 180 Design and tasked to make a simple quilt with our tool. We are also encouraged to use an additional Studio 180 Design tool if we had one. Quilts could go to children ages 2-17, so we are to use fabric that will appeal to any age group in that age range.
Materials used in this project were given to me by Island Batik, Studio 180 Design, Schmetz, Hobbs, Aurifil, and Oliso.
All of Deb Tucker's Studio 180 Design tools are designed to make units that are slightly oversized so that you can trim to perfection. You are able to make a variety of sizes with each tool. I was sent the Tucker Trimmer. The Tucker Trimmer makes half square triangles, so that meant lots of design possibilities! I played around with many options. Ultimately, I went back to a block I created for my Stay at Home Round Robin project earlier this year. The block also has flying geese units and I have Studio 180's flying geese tool, called the Wing Clipper, so I would be able to use both tools. My block for the SAHRR quilt also had a square-in-a-square center, we were told to keep these designs simple and use no more than 2 tools, so I simplified to a solid center square.
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| block mock-up from EQ8 |
In my January ambassador box, I had the Fire and Ice collection by Claudia Pfeil. I was also sent the always-available blender fabric Dandelion in Black. Fire and Ice has a lot of shades of reds and oranges with shades of gray and off-white. All 20 fabrics from Fire and Ice are in this quilt. I used solid gray as the background and chose that Dandelion in Black as the center of blocks and the sashing cornerstones. I feel like these are good angsty teen colors.
Our requirement was to make at least 30 of the units our tool is designed for. Each block has 4 half square triangles and there are 18 blocks, so that's 72 HSTs. Additionally, there are 8 flying geese in each block, so that's 144 flying geese! You can make this block any size. The one in my SAHRR was a 12" finished block. Based on the Fire & Ice fabric I had to work with, the blocks for this quilt are 9" square. I did both he piecing and quilting with Aurifil #5004 Grey Smoke. The batting is Hobbs cotton batting with scrim. Everything was stitched with Schmetz needles and pressed with my Oliso iron.
This finishes at 52" x 76". I hope it brings someone a good night's sleep!
